Current research interests:
My work is focused in two research areas. The first is on cinema and memory in postcolonial contexts of war and social conflict, which provides the framework for a monograph presently being completed. I also research 19th and early 20th century Arabic and Persian literatures, with a focus on the conceptualization of cultural modernity through tropes of rebirth and revitalization as developed by emergent social and cultural institutions.
More information over at my Tufts University academic profile.
My work is focused in two research areas. The first is on cinema and memory in postcolonial contexts of war and social conflict, which provides the framework for a monograph presently being completed. I also research 19th and early 20th century Arabic and Persian literatures, with a focus on the conceptualization of cultural modernity through tropes of rebirth and revitalization as developed by emergent social and cultural institutions.
More information over at my Tufts University academic profile.
Brief biography:
I am an Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures and a member of the faculty of the International Letters and Visual Cultures program at Tufts University. I completed a PhD in 2005 from Columbia University, awarded jointly in Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, and have held prior appointments at Brown University and the University of Edinburgh, teaching comparative literature, Arabic and Persian literatures, and postcolonial and world cinema courses.
I am currently in Beirut on research leave, as a visiting associate in the English Department at the American University in Beirut, and having taught a module on postcolonial cinema at the Ashkal Alwan Homeworks Studio program.
I am an Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures and a member of the faculty of the International Letters and Visual Cultures program at Tufts University. I completed a PhD in 2005 from Columbia University, awarded jointly in Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, and have held prior appointments at Brown University and the University of Edinburgh, teaching comparative literature, Arabic and Persian literatures, and postcolonial and world cinema courses.
I am currently in Beirut on research leave, as a visiting associate in the English Department at the American University in Beirut, and having taught a module on postcolonial cinema at the Ashkal Alwan Homeworks Studio program.
• February 27, 2012, Carnegie-Mellon/Northwestern University Qatar. "The Time That is Lost: Elia Suleiman's Cinematic Aporias"
• March 8, 2012, American University in Beirut. "Colonial Cinema, Memory, Masculinity: Screening The Four Feathers"
Recent Talks and Presentations:
• November 25, 2011, Ashkal Alwan Homeworks Studio. "Treacherous Memory: Iranian War Cinema and the Sacred Defense."
Selected Prior Talks and Presentations:
• April 8, 2011, "Seeds of Revolution: The Arab Nahda Reconsidered" Tufts University (Organizer)
Book:
• Literary Modernity Between the Middle East and Europe: Textual Transactions in Nineteenth Century Arabic, English and Persian Literatures. London: Routledge, 2007. (available in both hard and soft cover).
[review by Claus Pederson]
[review by Michael Beard]
Academic articles available online:
• "Trauma and Maturation in Women's War Narratives: The Eye of the Mirror and Cracking India" Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Fall 2006) (pp. 22-47) [JSTOR access]
• "The Changing Value of Alf Laylah wa Laylah for Nineteenth Century Arabic, English, and Persian Readerships," Journal of Arabic Literature , Vol. 36, No. 3, The Thousand and One Nights (2005), pp. 269-287 [JSTOR access]
• "Literary Modernity Between Arabic and Persian Prose: Jurji Zaydan's Riwayat in Persian Translation," Comparative Critical Studies, Vol 4, Issue 3, pp. 359-378. [Project Muse access]
• "Interview with Mahmoud Dowlatabadi," Comparative Critical Studies, Volume 4, Issue 3, 2007, pp. 441-446. [Project Muse access]
• "The Unintended Gift: The Adventures of Hajji Baba Ispahani as a Transactional Text Between English and Persian Literatures," Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol 10, No 3, pp. 251-271. [Informaworld access]
Other:
• "Arab and African Cinema’s Uncertain Future," Vertigo Magazine. No 21, 2008.
• Interview with Mahmoud Dowlatabadi [Video]